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Women work without a break for their families, society, and friends all through the year. So, on IWD 2016, LEAD conducted their 3rd annual "Recognizing the Unrecognized", where women in our society who are rarely recognized but are responsible for important work were recognized for their contributions, such as cleaning railway stations, bus stands, picking household trash, selling vegetables etc. LEAD and LEADers believe that, without these women, our communities would come to a standstill.

The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. To that purpose, the LEaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) Program of the Deshpande Foundation was born. LEAD develops innovative and entrepreneurial thinking within college students by exposing them to social issues, encouraging them to volunteer their time and effort into the community, and igniting their latent talent to come up with creative solutions. Through this unique platform provided by LEAD, students are gaining the skills and confidence needed to transform their visions into realities. Armed with guidance, exposure, networking opportunities, financial assistance, and encouragement from LEAD, students from throughout 75 colleges and 14 districts are unleashing their leadership potential to go on inspiring and improving those around them.

The 6th Yuva Summit, an international youth conference on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship hosted by the Leaders Accelerating Development program, began in Hubballi on 6th February with Mr. Ravindranath Gumaste, Managing Director of Kirloskar Ferrous Industries Ltd., cutting the ceremonial ribbon that let the hundreds of attendees, including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and honoured guests, into the event grounds.

On 24th January, 107 promising students from across Karnataka and neighbouring states descended upon the VTU campus in Belagavi to mark the kick-off of the 5th annual LEAD Prayana. These students, along with 32 beginning their journey on the same day in Nizamabad, were selected from a pool of almost 500 applicants. LEAD Prayana, which began in 2012 with just 63 students, is an annual leadership journey that takes almost 150 passionate students between the ages of 18-26 throughout India on a 14-day tour across Karnataka...

I am passionate about science, especially physics. My affair with Science started during my childhood and it deepened in my high school when I started participating in Science exhibitions with my models. During Pre University Education, I built the Levitation Train with few of my friends and grabbed prizes at several competitions. “Physics of the Impossible” by Michio Kaku was a book that exposed me further to the vastness of the science and motivated me to start a science group called “Blackbody Science Group (Which Absorbs All Wavelength of Intuitive Minds)”. This group engages in creating interest about science among government and physically disabled school children.

LEADer Shankar from S B Science College, Kalburgi noticed that many poor people in Kalburgi City were facing power cuts or were unable to afford much electricity, so at night, were without light or relying on fire sources.

Addressing two problems at once, Shankar designed a low-cost lamp made of waste materials in order to also re-use products that would otherwise be put in landfill or burned.

With only waste materials and 1500 Rs of funding from LEAD, Shankar has produced over 400 study lamps to distribute both to poor students, so they can study and work on school at night, but also in slum areas to use while cooking and spending time in the home.

Shankar's biggest challenges was to get his lamps to the people who needed it most, because he wanted to maximize his impact. He also struggled to find the proper waste materials, but as an important element of his project, he didn't give up and searched for these products to make hundreds of lamps.

Through this project he has realized just how important having light can be in improving the quality of life for a home.